Reaching the final days of a state high school golf tournament and winning isn't supposed to be easy.
A hole at the Ohio High School Athletic Association Division II boys tournament went beyond that, local coaches said. On the 12th hole at NorthStar Golf Club, bad hole placement caused some players to have to putt upwards of 10 times, an issue that went further when the OHSAA decided to water the hole, but only after half the golfers had already played through.
Wyoming High School golfers were among the first groups to play and started on the course's back nine holes.
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"I see (our first golfer to play) go out on the green and he waves me over," Wyoming golf coach and 30-year PGA member Scott Webb said. "He says, 'Hey coach. Check this green out. The hole looks like it's not going to stop.' I said, 'Really?' I sat there and looked at it."
The pin was placed on top of a hill and with the greens playing fast, missed putts could be disastrous.
"There was no place to stop the ball within three or four feet of the hole," Madeira coach Brad Conner said. "If you were above the hole and you missed, you were definitely going down 12 feet. If you were below the hole, you would putt up. If it missed short, if it missed left, if it missed right, every single time it would come back down 12 to 15 feet away at the base of the hill.
"Even if you missed long, there was a chance it was going to go in on its way back down, but there was no way to miss it long and have it stay unless you missed 6 to 8 feet long. Then you'd have a scary downhill putt that you'd probably miss and then you'd be back down to 12 or 15 feet again."
With some players having to five-putt, eight-putt or even 10-putt the hole, another issue besides bloated scores came up: slowed pace of play.
As the golfers on the 12th hole took longer to finish, it created a logjam. One group waited for its turn on hole 12 and soon after more groups arrived which slowed the tournament until the OHSAA took their action.
As around half the groups had already finished the 12th hole, the decision was made to start watering down the green in an attempt to make the ball move slower and help it stop closer to the hole.
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It was legal move according to the OHSAA and Webb, who is himself a rules official, could only recall the decision to water holes once and that wasn't a high school tournament: it was the 2004 U.S. Open.
Tyler Brooks, the OHSAA official who was at the tournament and is listed as the Golf Administrator said the decision to water was to match the early morning moisture that should have benefited the first golfers.
In an emailed response to The Enquirer about the hole, Brooks said: "The course professional sets the pins in consultation with the greens superintendent. Once the poor pin placement was realized after a group had played through, there was no option to move the pin by rule. As the greens got drier and faster, and the wind began to pick up later in the day, we felt that the only option that was available to the tournament was to periodically apply water to the greens for later groups. This was done in an attempt to maintain similar conditions on the green that morning groups played with, with the overnight moisture and calmer winds. This is permissible by rule, and what we felt was best for the tournament as whole."
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After hearing how the hole was described by those who started on the front nine and played hole 12 after the watering had started, Conner said: "If they were to even suggest that it wasn't lightning fast or absurd, tells me that it was dramatically different than what we encountered."
Four days after the tournament ended and five days after playing the 12th hole on the hill, an email signed by Brooks, tournament manager Chris Cores and NorthStar's interim head golf pro Ryne Kitchen was sent to coaches.
That email read, in part, "The pin placement was a mistake, and was certainly not intentionally placed to humble or embarrass the golfers. That has never been the intention of any OHSAA state golf tournament, and again was not the circumstance here. Once the poor pin placement was realized after a group had played through, there was no option to move the pin.
"As the green got drier throughout the day and the wind picked up, we felt it was best for the tournament as a whole to apply periodic water to the green to mitigate the increasing extreme difficulty in completing the hole. We understand that decision is controversial, but it was done in an attempt to maintain similar conditions on the green that first groups played with, with the greens retaining overnight moisture and calmer winds. This is permissible by rule, and what we felt was best for the tournament as a whole.
"We all witnessed the challenge of the pin placement on Friday, and it felt like a gut punch every time we watched a golfer’s putt attempt miss and roll back down the green.
"We have reviewed and revised our pin placement process for future tournaments and can assure you that an oversight like this will never happen again. We know that does not rectify the issue that your golfers had to work through on Friday, but I wanted you all to know that."
Just how will the error affect future tournaments? The answers aren't clear yet.
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When asked what could be changed to have better pin placement in the future, Brooks stated in an email that "those revisions are internal at this time" and are to be shared at those tournaments with participating coaches.
For now, coaches and players that had to wait five days for an explanation of why a bad hole happened could have to wait a year to hear how the incident can be prevented from happening again.
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